Part 1: MCAT

[Admin]

• You need at least 3 months to prepare for the MCAT. The earlier you study for the MCAT, the earlier you can take it, and then the earlier you can apply to medical school. It can be really stressful if you try to study for the MCAT and do a summer job or anything time consuming at the same time during the summer of junior year.

• Take courses where you have to read & write, or read newspapers and research papers to study for MCATs. The MCAT is about comprehending passages and deducing information, not about how much science you can regurgitate from memory. Non-science majors tend to do better than some science majors because they probably have to read to comprehend and deduce information for their classes. LOOK AT THE PROOF: http://medschoolodyssey.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/some-statistics-on-the-mcat-and-your-undergraduate-major/

• A MCAT course is not really necessary because all you need are materials and will power/time management.
  Plus, most of the contents of the Kaplan course are in dropbox and in the PhiDE library.

• You can find materials, even a MCAT course (wikipremed.com), online for free! Testbank has a bunch of materials to prepare for the test.

• ExamKrackers is popular and best for studying for the MCAT, especially for Verbal Reasoning, but try a variety of course materials to find what works best for you.

• Best part of Kaplan (other than the fact that you can take it again for free if you didn't do well on the MCAT the first time around) is the massive amounts of practice tests, including AAMC Practice Tests (Warning: Pay more attention to your score on the AAMC Practice Tests than Kaplan Practice Tests because it closely resembles what you will get on the real MCAT)

• Register for your MCATs WHEN YOU ARE READY, not because you are a junior and it is what you think you have to do so that you will to go straight to medical school after college. FYI: about 50% of people that get accepted into medical school do not go straight from college; they either take a year off, go to grad school, get a job, travel, etc.

• A high MCAT score can bring up a lower GPA – and vice versa – but only to a certain extent.

• Your MCAT score may be the difference of you getting into a competitive Allopathic (MD), Osteopathic (DO), or Podiatric (DPM) medical school.

• To be considered competitive for US MD schools, this is a formula that you can refer to: (GPA X 10) + MCAT score = >65. If your score is less than 65 consider applying to also Osteopathic or Podiatric schools.

[Admin]

For Allopathic: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=838625

For Osteopathic: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=5184261&postcount=192

[Adaeze]

This is the article: http://studentdoctor.net/2012/02/conquering-the-mcat-a-student-perspective/

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